I watched the women's figure skating finals while standing in this crowd of thousands, the TV image being projected onto the side of the Sears department store. We all cheered the success of the Canadian skater - her strength and determination was nothing less than remarkable.

Star sightings at the USA House last night:

- Frank Marshall, the legendary movie producer (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0550881/) and longtime supporter of the US Olympic effort.
 
 - Norman Bellingham, 1988 K2 kayak Olympic champion, who briefly rowed for Harvard. Norm is the Chief Operating Officer of the USOC. He's also a charter member of the 'DG Club' (Dorian Gray Club); Norm looks as though he just finished a 10 X 2K workout in the K1, in 1988.
 
- Paulina Gretzky, daughter guy of the old guy who did that stick/ice sport. Her dad was there also (but not a member of the DG Club).

 
Omega - the Olympic timekeeper - (http://www.omegawatches.com/gents/specialities/olympic-collection-vancouver-2010/21230412004001) has produced a cool commemorative watch that includes a 'Helium Escape Valve,' which allows for the watch to be decompressed when swimming around 300 feet deep. Nice feature, but is there a person on earth who is going to be wearing $5,000 watch when diving 300 feet down? Limited edition: 2010 editions created. Tempting. (More functional and priced right: an Omega Olympic hat, which are being given away free to anyone in Vancouver. As you can imagine, there's about 3,000 homeless guys stumbling around Vancouver these days, looking like death warmed over, but wearing really nice Omega Olympic hats.)
 
Biathlon: Men's 15K Mass Start
At the WOP (Whistler Olympic Park / world's worst acronym), at 10:30 in the morning, a dozen or so Norwegian guys sitting around me were already drunk on their ass, passing the time until the race start by trying to get more drunk. They were cheerful drunks, anyway. Then the King of Norway showed up to watch the race, and was promptly heckled/cheered/serenaded by his countrymen. (It happened to be the King's birthday, hence the serenading.)

The sport of winter warriors is biathlon. I might go so far as to say that Biathlon is the truest test of athletic excellence of the whole planet, winter or summer.

Unlike emaciated distance runners, (who look as though a strong wind would knock them over), the biathlon competitors look as though they could hold their own in an MMA cage fight. And the shooting... going from 60 mph to zero in three seconds and then getting off five quick shots. Fit, powerful, strong, with the steely nerves and poise of a brain surgeon - their skills are off the chart.

The Men's 15K Mass Start started, the Norwegian fans jumped to their feet and cranked up the volume. Emil Hegle Svendsen started well, staying near or at the front on the first ski portion. Then he shot clean, 5 for 5. Then he skied like a champion; then he shot clean; skied again, flawlessly. Then shot, missing once; he did his penalty lap and was still in contention, fifth place. The next time he shot , he missed twice. Race over, at least as far as Emil was concerned. The Norwegians fans expressed their disappointment by heading en masse to the beer bar.

The women’s race was held an hour after the men's. Is there anything sexier than a women cross country skiing with a big rifle strapped on her back?

I’m thinking maybe we can introduce a rowing-and-shooting event into rowing. Haven’t quite worked out the details yet. Probably a handgun would be in order, 9mm or .45? What sort of targets? And how would you keep the rowers from shooting each other? The idea has potential... just not fleshed out yet.

http://www.passivehouse.us/passiveHouse/PassiveHouseInfo.html

Might be fun to build one. Anyone interested? Leave me a comment to that effect.

Brad

The apartment buildings that dominate the Village will be sold after the Games for top dollar. Certainly it's a far cry from having athletes stay in college dorms.

The 2010 Village has a enormous gym, weight room, and training facility. A quick dunk is the ice cold rehab pool may or may not provide relief, but is sure a hell will distract you from your worries. Even preventative dental care is being offered to all Olympic athletes (but unfortunately not to former Olympic athletes, as this one tooth right in the back, lower left side, has been bothering me for a while.)

The dining hall is training food heaven under a big white tent. Everything edible is always on the menu; and if fresh, healthy food isn't your thing, there's also a McDonalds off to the side. All free of cost to the athletes, of course. The only thing not on the menu is alcohol, which is not allowed in the village. At the moment, early days at these Games, teams sit in tight knots, seeking strong team spirit and safety in numbers, etc. But as the days roll past, and athletes are freed from the bonds of training-and-competing, more than a few email address will be exchanged between newfound friends from non-contiguous countries.

Not far from the dining hall is the 'Peace Wall.' Athletes from around the world have signed the wall, which will eventually be auctioned off, the proceeds to assist Haiti.

So, smack in the middle of the Vancouver Olympic Village is a concrete and steel wall covered with the names of hundreds of young people.

There's something similar in Washington DC... smack in the middle of National Mall is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, made of black granite and inscribed with 58,261 names.

A random thought: soldiers come back from war, (any war), and often suffer from severe mental issues. Some are so sick they kill themselves.

Win, lose, or draw, athletes come back from the Olympics Games and get on with their lives. They practically never kill themselves... in fact, a quick google search turns up no examples of an Olympic athlete committing suicide.

Tentative conclusion: Olympics are good for one's mental health (or at least not bad for one's mental health). Fighting a war, (any war), however, is not good for one's mental health.

After wandering around on this planet for roughly 240,000 years, perhaps we humans can use our collective experience, knowledge, wisdom, and patience to do neat, smart, cool things (Olympics) and not dumb things (war, any war).

Ice. Several ice rinks are in use here in Rain City. The smaller rink is used for figure skating and short track speed skating. The brand new Richmond Oval is being used for the usual, long course (400 meter track) speed skating. 

Short track speed skating is like a knife fight, except the knives are strapped to their feet. Nasty little sport. A few nights ago, Apolo Ohno got a silver medal by virtue of being in 4th place with 100 feet to go, behind a guy from Korea and then two other guys from Korea. As soon as the 2nd and 3rd place Koreans took their squabble to the mat, Apolo took their place and got the silver.

Of some interest: the athletes in short track, should they feel as though they treated poorly by a fellow competitor, (ie. given a short kick in the nuts by an emaciated Slovenian and then pushed aside). are not allowed to protest. A slew of judges watch the action, see who falls, see who has been wronged, and then quickly pass judgment. Case closed.

On the other side of town, the long track speed skating is a sedate poetry reading by comparison. (A very very thin rowing/speed skating connection: the father of legendary speed skater Eric Heiden is accomplished master's rower Jack Heiden. Even thinner: Connie Carpender Phinney - Univ of Wisco rower / Olympic gold medalist in the cycling /competed in speed skating, '72 winter Olympics)

The long track is good theater. 2 skaters competing, head to head; in yesterdays women's 3000 meters, on each of the 6 laps, you could practically see the lactic acid levels increasing until you thought the skater's heads would explode. And after they finished, they slowed glided around on the track using the inside warm-up/warm-down lane, heads hanging, their coach holding them upright. Once they found their way to the wooden bench adjacent to the track, they began the world's slowest strip tease, carefully removing skates, speed suit, etc. Finally they hobbled off to the locker room, walking on broken glass.

VP Joe Biden showed up at the U.S.A. Olympic House, (sponsored by ATT). VP Joe knows how to make an entrance. A convoy of 35 SUVs pulled up in front - out leaped 175 Secret Service types, snipers took position on the adjacent rooftops, a helicopter buzzed overhead at low altitude. (I was sort of hoping Jason Bourne would pop out of a manhole cover and made some cool Bourne-mischief because I had my 4.2 megapixel camera ready to go. No such luck.) When the coast was deemed clear, Joe came into the USA House. Joe shook hands, posed for a picture with few kid or two on the way out. Then Joe exited, stage left, diving headfirst in his special bombproof Suburban. Off he want... destination unknown.

Vancouver 2010 - the Opening

Gray sky all the way from LAX to Vancouver. Descend through the clouds until breaking free about five miles from YVR, about 3,330 foot elevation, easing out of the mist, the Olympic city glowing from the ground up in the later afternoon. Never looked better.

Leaving customs and baggage claim, a nice scrum of friends and family and even a few paparratzi greeted excited passengers.

The 2010 Winter Games has already paid monster dividends for the city in the form of the ‘Canada Line', an above ground/below ground tram that takes you from YVR airport to downtown Vancouver in 15 minutes for $8.50. This saves the rider about $20.00 and 40 minutes when compared to the same ride in a taxi (although you do miss the crash course in Farsi and the inevitable circuitous tour of the environs.)

A step too slow, I just missed out on the best seat on the tram, the backwards facing seat farthest to the rear of the tram. the view is wonderfully hallucinogenic. This special seat was claimed by a young woman who spent the whole ride tapping out text messages. She wore a long red coat over a short black dress. Red and black. Is red and black the new black?

Ouside the venue for the Opening Ceremonies a few lame protesters were lamely protesting the Games. Seven years of preparations and that's the best they can do? I saw more pushing in the men's room.

All in all, the Opening Ceremonies were okay. (Too long, of course, like most Saturday Night Live skits, which start well and end with yawns.) At least the Olympic athletes were allowed early entrance into the stadium, rather than being made to cool their heels for a few hours while the entertainment was trotted out.

ONE GOOD THING: no kids in the program. At the Beijing Games, they rounded up kids like kooky Christians in Haiti after the earthquake. 10,003 kids on stage during their Opening. Kids on stage at Opening Ceremonies = pandering to the lowest common entertaintment denominator. What's next, a sack full of kittens?

All the singing, fiddling, cable flying, k.d. lange-ing added up to 1/10,000 of the power of a minute of silence in honor of the Georgian luge athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili, who was killed earlier in the day. Not one sound, nothing. Pure, intense, prolonged silence. A fitting tribute.

B. Lewis with bow; T. Lewis with arrows

Fortunately for me, my brother Tracy - who rowed at OCC and San Diego State - was quite a bit older, so when it came to rowing, we did nothing more than cheer each other on.

In rowing there has been a good supply of brother-partnerships, (Winklevoss twins, Frank and Alf Hansen, the Abbagnales, the Landvoigt twins, the Battling Borchelt brothers). There have been brothers who rowed in the same boat, (Joe and Tom Amlong, gold in 1964 8+). But it's hard to come up with even a solitary example of two brothers who competed against each other - until now.

For David and James Livingston, it did happen, in spades - head-to-head - against each other in the biggest race in Great Britain, the legendary Oxford & Cambridge Boat Race.

Drawing from their training journals, the two men separately wrote their own stories, and then intertwined the sagas into an excellent non-fiction book, Blood Over Water. The over-the-top preparation by both Oxford and Cambridge crews for this solitary race, which will not only define the whole season but will define the rowers' futures to no small extent, makes the Harvard-Yale race look like a couple of pikers on a donut run.

There are a few pretty good training ideas included. There are a couple of fresh Brit slang-terms for a quick leg-over. The best part is the brutal honesty about what it's like to compete against your brother. The reason it rings true, I think, is because this book has not been put through the "with-machine." Most athlete-writers employ a ghost writer: It's Not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong WITH Sally Jenkins. These professional with-writers suck all the energy out of a book. As a reader, I want the story to go down blind alleys, not bland freeways; I want misplaced metaphors; I want the bad jokes left in; I want to read about the drunken brawls, the busted blisters, about the way a friend of James celebrated her twentieth birthday.

The honestly can be downright scary, as written by David: "He turned and ran off, out of the kitchen and down the hall. I took up the chase. James ran left into the living room, which joins the kitchen through another door. Realizing I would never catch him, I threw a seven-inch knife at him. It ricocheted off the wall and bounced onto the floor. We were both left shaken. Did I really want to hurt him this much? I think I aimed for the wall but I couldn't be sure.'

That last line says it all. Every younger brother has thrown the knife. And then been relieved beyond words when it bounced off the floor.

Blood Over Water

http://www.amazon.com/Blood-over-Water-David-Livingston/dp/0747595151